Today Double Fine Productions has announced that its upcoming virtual reality (VR) title Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin will launch next month.
A PlayStation VR exclusive, the video game had originally been slated as a day one release for the head-mounted display (HMD), but now the adventure puzzle game has been given a launched date of 21st February 2017.
Written and directed by Tim Schafer and lead by Chad Dawson, the standalone VR chapter will chronicle the events between the first Psychonauts and the forthcoming Psychonauts 2.
Players assume the role of Raz, a young psychic and member of the Psychonauts — an elite group of international psychic secret agents – picking up exactly where it left off at the end of Psychonauts ten years ago. A first-person adventure, players will use Raz’s various psychic powers – such as Clairvoyance, Telekinesis and Pyrokinesis – to manipulate the world, and solve puzzles, with the mission taking them straight into the heart of the Rhombus of Ruin.
VRFocuspreviewed the title last year, saying: “A great deal of attention has been paid to the strengths and weaknesses of VR in order to make the best of the technology, and Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin’s preview build teases a memorable experience lying ahead. Despite all the action and adrenaline-pumping videogames on the horizon for PlayStation VR, Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin’s more sedate adventure is one of the most promising yet seen for the format.”
VRFocuswill continue its coverage of Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin, reporting back with any further updates.
Virtual Reality ist den meisten Menschen aktuell zu teuer. Dieses Problem möchte NOLO lösen und bereits für 99 US-Dollar den Einstieg in die virtuelle Welt mit SteamVR ermöglichen.
NOLO Kickstarter-Kampagne gestartet
Das Produkt besteht aus einer Basis-Station, zwei Controllern und einem Tracker für das Headset. Nolo will mit diesen Komponenten Positional Tracking und getrackte Controller auch für Mobile VR Erfahrungen bereitstellen. Doch die Entwickler setzen noch eins drauf. Über Riftcat kann das System auch mit dem PC verbunden werden und anschließend sollt ihr SteamVR Inhalte mit Positional Tracking auf dem Smartphone verwenden können.
Das NOLO System kostet zwar nur 99 US-Dollar, aber ihr benötigt noch ein flottes Smartphone und ein gutes Virtual Reality Headset für das Smartphones. Empfehlenswert ist die Samsung Gear VR oder das Google Daydream View. Ihr könnt aber auch jedes andere Headset für Smartphones nehmen und ein beliebiges Android Smartphone verwenden.
Die Entwickler streben ein Finanzierungsziel von nur 50.000 US-Dollar an und fast die Hälfte ist bereits erreicht. Aktuell sind schon alle Super Early Bird Slots weg, aber ihr könnt noch einen herkömmlichen Early Bird Slot erwerben. Die Auslieferung der Hardware soll bereits im Mai 2017 stattfinden. Wenn ihr aus Deutschland bestellt, dann kommen noch 30 US-Dollar für den Versand hinzu.
Over the past week Oculus has been releasing lots of tech tips to get the best use out of its headset, sensors and Touch controllers. Today sees the final installment and its all to do with the extra equipment needed to make owners lives that little easier.
Firstly the blog looks at wall mounting and the cabling users might need for the optimal set-up. When purchasing the Touch controllers they come supplied with an additional sensor and extension cable. Should you need further cabling or for set-ups involving more sensors (roomscale), Oculus has listed several other cable brands its tried that might be worth a look. The company does note:
Active extension cables tend to maintain their signal better than passive extensions, so we recommend you use them if possible.
Since USB 2.0 uses less data bandwidth than USB 3.0, they often work more reliably with extension lengths 15 feet or greater. We don’t recommend any USB 3.0 extensions longer than around 15 feet.
We’ve seen some instability when trying to connect four sensors on USB 3.0 on a single controller, as mentioned in our previous post, so we don’t recommend trying this configuration.
The sensors maybe one thing but what about extending the Rift’s cabling? Depending on where your PC is, the shape of your room and other factors, the 12 feet of cable may not quite be enough, so Oculus does have suggestions: “you can try using USB 3.0 and HDMI extension cables to get a longer Rift cable. That said, we didn’t specifically design the Rift cable to work well beyond the default 12-foot length, so your mileage may vary if you decide to extend it. We’ve done limited testing with extensions up to 6 feet and have noticed it generally works well for the machines and hardware we tested.”
Going back to the sensors, optimal placement is key to getting the best roomscale, and that might just mean putting them on a wall in the corner of a room. The sensor can actually be unscrewed from the base plate to connect to a standard tripod mount. Or if you’ve got the skills, know how, and a 3D printer, print your own mounts (Oculus doesn’t make these).
For any of the extension options Oculus does state: “Non-Oculus equipment/service references are not recommendations, guarantees, or endorsements of products or performance.” So it might well be worth shopping around, especially if you’re outside of the US.
Google arbeitet bereits seit einiger Zeit an seiner neuen VR-Plattform Daydream, wenngleich der durchschlagende Erfolg bisher noch ausgeblieben ist. Googles größtes Problem stellen hierbei die Anwendungen selbst da. All zu viele gibt es nämlich noch nicht und nur wenige laden diese auch noch herunter.
Lösung für Daydream
Um dieses Problem nun anzugehen öffnet Google sein bisher nur begrenzt geöffnetes Entwicklungskit. Fortan kann jeder ohne Restriktionen Apps für Googles VR-Plattform entwickeln und diese über den Android-Store zum Download freigeben. Bevor die Apps jedoch auf die interessierten Endkunden losgelassen werden, durchlaufen sie zuvor noch einmal eine Google-interne Prüfung, welche sicherstellt, dass die verlangten Qualitätskriterien eingehalten werden.
Ein besonderes Augenmerk liegt dabei natürlich auf dem Design, der Funktionalität, der Performance und der Stabilität der VR-App. Diese Grundfaktoren sind für ein VR-Produkt letztlich unersetzlich, damit dieses eine angenehme und für den Nutzer verträgliche Erfahrung bietet.
Das vielversprechende Startup-Unternehmen Virtualitics mit dem Fokus auf Daten-Analysen in VR und AR hat offiziell bekanntgegeben, dass das Team eine Finanzierung von rund 3 Millionen Pfund für Forschungen im Bereich Big Data akquirieren konnte. Das Kapital soll ausnahmslos in die Entwicklung der hauseigenen Virtual- und Augmented Reality-Plattform fließen, die dank künstlicher Intelligenz in der Lage ist, große und komplexe Datenmengen anschaulich visualisieren können.
Big Data in VR – Daten in wechselnder Perspektive
Die Riege an renommierten Wissenschaftlern und Business-Managern, die sich unter dem Motto „Immerse yourself in your data“ zusammengefunden hat, setzt sich aus Veteranen im Bereich VR wie zum Beispiel George Djorgovski, Professor an der kalifornischen Hochschule für Technologie (Caltech) und Top-Managern wie Michael Amori, ehemaliger Managing Director der Deutschen Bank zusammen, die Rohdaten für Unternehmen und Einzelpersonen leicht zugänglich und verständlich machen wollen. Das Ziel: Muster und Trends in großen Datensammlungen visualisieren und verstecktes Wissen aus den mehrdimensionalen Ergebnissen ziehen.
Amori erklärt 2D und 3D-Visualisierungen für obsolet und lobt die Möglichkeiten der hauseigenenen Virtualitics-Technologie:
„Big Data is worthless if we cannot extract actionable knowledge from it,” said Amori, CEO of Virtualitics. “Visualization can reveal the knowledge hidden in data, but traditional 2-D and 3-D data visualizations are inadequate for large and complex data sets. Our solution is to visualize as many as 10 dimensions in VR/AR all via a Shared Virtual Office, which allows even untrained users to spot patterns in data that can give companies a competitive edge.“
Dank der 10 möglichen Dimensionen, in denen Big Data in VR oder AR visualisiert werden könne, sei es auch für Laien möglich, sich gegenüber der Konkurrenzen einen signifikanten Vorteil zu verschaffen, in dem Muster leicht erkannt und nutzbar gemacht werden.
Anstelle von unübersichtlichen Tabellen oder 2D-Grafiken sei es dank der Virtualitics-Innovation möglich, in die Datenmengen einzutauchen und hautnah zu erleben, was gewisse Statistiken über den Stand eines Unternehmens aussagen. Wer bereits die VR-Experience Tilt Brush erleben konnte, kann sich vorstellen wie Big Data passend verdeutlicht werden kann, nämlich anhand von mehrdimensionalen Gebilden, die, im richtigen Winkel betrachtet, deutlich zeigen können wie Verteilungen oder Trends zu deuten sind.
Wir bleiben gespannt wie die 3 Millionen Pfund letztlich angelegt werden und welche Verbesserungen sich für die Virtualitics-Plattform ergeben.
Basemark has officially launched its virtual reality performance benchmark, VRScore and the package comes complete with an ingenious, low-cost hardware assisted solution to help ensure results are accurate.
I’ve written previously about how tough a problem benchmarking virtual reality hardware and software accurately really is. VR’s tight integration between hardware, application and drivers mixed with platform provider’s varying approaches to performance optimisations, means getting at numbers are indicative or even useful is extremely difficult.
We took a look at Futuremark’s early solution to gathering motion to photon performance which featured a bewildering and expensive array of light sensitive sensor and oscilloscope, an effort to try to close the loop on the latency between application rendering a scene and the user inside VR experiencing it. The solution was, perhaps unsurprisingly, abandoned with Futuremark instead recommending their VRMark software be used largely experientially between hardware setups in order to gauge relative performance. A solution which leaves much to be desired from an analytical stand point.
Enter Basemark, a Helsinki based company who have made a name for themselves across a wide array of performance measurement solutions. They’re perhaps best known however for their widely used Basemark X, their solution to measuring graphics performance on mobile devices. Their new solution is called VRScore and it promises to provide an analytical approach to measuring the performance or your PC hardware and chosen VR headset.
The VRScore package comprises the base performance testing software itself (which comes in both DX11 and 12 guises), and the VRTrek – a device which features optical sensors and is hooked up to your PC’s soundcard Mic-in socket.
The software itself is broken into three sections:
System Test: Purely a test of your PC’s rendering grunt, this runs the Crytek developed ‘Sky Harbor’ VR experience, itself running on the company’s CryEngine software, and measures the resulting frame rate throughout the experience. The benchmark is rendered in stereoscopic 3D and uses pre-baked head motions, presumably recorded from an in-house playtest, to simulate VR headset usage. Each frame from the experience is rendered sequentially as quickly as possible and that sequence run multiple times. The faster you complete the loop, the faster your PC is. This clearly does nothing to gauge performance in relation to your VR headset, for that you’ll need to move to the full test.
The VRScore ‘Sky Harbor’ experience running in System Test mode
VRTrek Test: This is the more interesting of the two benchmark modes as it leverages Basemark’s unique selling point, the VRTrek sensor device. VRTrek tackles a difficult problem (measuring the latency between images being rendered at the PC and displayed on the VR headset) rather elegantly. This benchmark runs the same looped experience as the System Test above, but this time displayed through the headset, ready for latency measurement.
The VRTrek device contains two photosensitive sensors mounted on a height adjustable perspex stand. Tweak the height of the sensor for your VR headset and position them to sit in front of each lens. Then you simply attach the single audio cable to an enabled Mic 3.5mm jack on your PC’s sound card and you’re ready to go.
Why the sound card hook up? Well this is the clever part. The Trek plugs into a PC via that 3.5mm jack (via a spare Microphone-In port); using the PC to coordinate timed flashes on the VR headset’s display, the Trek then sends analogue measurements of brightness right through the microphone port. The VRScore benchmark takes these readings and compares timing of the flash command and the actual flash to determine latency. The device allows the VRScore benchmark to detect dropped frames, frame latency and even duplicate frames received by the VR headset.
Here’s a brief breakdown of technical specifications for the VRTrek device:
Parameter
Rating
Spectral range of sensitivity
Near infrared to deep blue / purple
Response time
8 μs
Field of view(FoW)
12°
Accuracy
0.2 ms
Precision
<0,01 ms
VR Experience Mode: Simply gives you the chance to try out the Sky Harbor benchmark experience for yourself and it is well worth doing so. Road to VR‘s Ben Lang was so impressed with VRScore‘s little demo after trying it at last year’s GDC, he remarked that Crytek had “accidentally made the most spectacular cinematic VR short I’ve ever seen”. While expectations and qualitative bars in VR experienced have been raised in the last year, Sky Harbor still remains an extremely impressive demonstration of how transportative VR can be, especially when built with the level of production design present here.
VRScore supports HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and OSVR’s HDK as of writing, for the purposes of this review we used an Oculus Rift.
Other features of note, are the ability to engage NVIDIA Multi-Resolution Shading and Lens Matched Shading, both extremely interesting technologies which aim to reduce GPU rendering burdens for better overall performance (currently DX11 only). You’re also able to run the benchmarks at non native HMD resolutions. We didn’t get the chance to test, but this looked to give the option to test super-sampling.
Alas, due to a shipping delay, our review VRTrek device hadn’t made it to us in time for this article, but we’ll be putting the system through its paces this week for some more detailed feedback. In the mean time, Basemark looks like to have struck a good balance between accessibility, spectacle and analytical credentials with VRScore, we’ll let you know if it performs as expected soon.
VRScore will be launching initially with its Corporate version, with both the Professional and Free versions following in Q2 2017. The differences between the editions are broken down on Basemark’s site here.
Disclosure: Basemark supplied Road to VR with a copy of VRScore and one VRTrek device for evaluation.
They might be the developers behind Sublevel Zero and they may have other virtual reality (VR) projects planned, but that certainly isn’t the only plans that Sigtrap Games have according to an interview to be published later this week on VRFocus in which we spoke to studio Co-Founder Luke Thompson. In fact whilst they are best known for a VR title that’s not how the studio would necessarily like you to think of them.
“We don’t see ourselves as an exclusively VR studio but, at the moment, the gameplay ideas that we want to explore are in VR; and ultimately, the reason for that is, what I was saying about not knowing what it is yet that VR can do that other mediums can’t. And that’s what we want to do!” Explains Thompson in the interview. Agreeing that VR’s freedom of creativity is the big draw for them as things stand. “We want to do things in VR that you can’t do otherwise.”
Sublevel Zero, a procedurally generated six-degree-of-freedom shooter inspired by classic titles such as Descent and Forsaken was released as Sigtrap Games’ debut title back in October 2015 with current Beta support for both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. The first-person experience gives would-be pilots control of a gunship flying around on its own through randomly generated levels set in an mysterious underground facility. Encountering enemies and gathering keys to unlock new pathways.
The interview, conducted at December’s Develop:VR, also discusses the issues of sim-sickness in VR and Thompson’s personal hopes for what 2017 will bring to the industry. It will be released later this week.
Der Großteil moderner AR-Apps und Spiele richtet sich an Jugendliche oder Erwachsene, die erleben wollen wie sich ihre Umwelt spielerisch verändern lässt. Pokèmon GO zeigte im letzten Jahr, das Apps in der Augmented Reality nicht nur Technik-Freaks, sondern auch neugierige Casuals begeistern können. Das amerikanische Startup Qurious hingegen hat sich zum Ziel gesetzt, eine deutlich jüngere Zielgruppe an AR heranzuführen und stellte kürzlich ihre Maker Box vor, die physische Elemente mit der virtuellen Erfahrung von AR verbindet, um Kreativität und Lernprozesse anzuregen.
AR-Erfahrung mit Lerneffekt
Die Maker Box besteht aus vier spielbaren Geschichten, die mithilfe der physischen Spielelemente, Masken, Puzzleteile, Pappkarten oder Sticker, über die entsprechende App in die Realität eingebunden werden. Die Idee dahinter: Kinder von 4 bis 9 Jahren nutzen ihre kostbare Spielzeit nicht nur, indem sie auf den Bildschirm einer herkömmlichen App starren, sondern agieren gleichzeitig mit ihren Händen und lernen auf spielerische Art und Weise. Die geschieht unter anderem am Beispiel der Geschichte rund um die drei kleinen Schweinchen.
Sesh Sareday, einer der Gründer des kleinen Startup-Unternehmens fasst die Prämisse der Augmented Reality Maker Box folgendermaßen zusammen:
„We were inspired by the need to blend education and entertainment. While everyone has been excited about mobile devices, people are concerned about the addiction to screens. What’s been left out is the physical play. This is a new way of play.“
Gespielt wird schlicht, indem man eines der physischen Objekte aus der Box vor die Kamera des Ipad hält. Eine Sequenz wird getriggert, die je nach gewähltem Objekte varriiert. Auch Übungen zum Sprachschatz oder zur Aussprache verstecken sich innerhalb der Maker Box. Trägt man die Maske, schaut in die Kamera des Eingabegeräts und drückt anschließend den Aufnahme-Knopf der App, hat man die Möglichkeit, die Geschichten der Maker Box in ganz eigener Tonlage und mit eigenen Worten nachzuerzählen – Rollenspiel erwünscht.
Darüber hinaus bietet das Produkt des fünfköpfigen Startup-Teams einen Puzzle-Modus, in dem es darum geht, das Haus der drei kleinen Schweinchen Stück für Stück, physisches Puzzleteil für Puzzleteil, aufzubauen und anschließend in 3D auf dem Bildschirm zu entdecken. Ähnlich verhält es sich mit den beiliegenden Stickern, die Interaktivität und Kreativität fordern sollen. Diese sind mehrfach verwendbar und verändern die erzählte Geschichte je nach Wahl des Objekts.
Sareday betonte allerdings, dass es sich bei der Qurious Maker Box nicht um ein reines Bildungs-Projekt handelt. Vielmehr habe sich das Startup-Unternehmen zum Ziel gesetzt: Mit Spaß lernen. Eine Abonnement-Funktion mit einer monatlich erscheinenden Maker Box, ausgestattet mit neuen, lehrreichen Geschichten, sei bereits in Planung.
Its becoming increasingly popular for brands to use virtual reality (VR) as a means of promotion. Over the weekend VRFocus reported on PEDIGREE sponsoring a VR experience for Animal Planet’s annual Puppy Bowl. Today there’s another, M&M’s along with contemporary artist KAWS and art-fashion-media icon VISIONAIRE, have created an immersive film to celebrate the brand’s 75th Anniversary.
Starting out in KAWS studio, the artist begins by talking about his work and the processes that go into his paintings. Its not long before the video goes from the real to the surreal, taking viewers inside the paintings and into a cartoon world.
“This immersive collaboration with KAWS was a natural fit for the brand as we continue to celebrate 75 years of colorful M&M’S fun,” said Tanya Berman, Brand Director, M&M’S Brand. “KAWS’ unique artistic take of the virtual reality trend creates a truly vibrant and unforgettable extension of our well-loved, colorful identity.”
“Celebrating the beloved M&M’s 75th with VR film technology and the colorful mastermind of the artist KAWS was pure and fun to make. We are always looking for ways to push artistic storytelling into the future,” says James Kaliardos, co-founder of VISIONAIRE.
Checkout the video below, or jump into the YouTube app with a compatible VR headset for the full experience. For all of the latest VR news from around the world, keep reading VRFocus.
This month has seen the arrival of FOVE 0, the virtual reality (VR) head-mounted display (HMD) that features inbuilt eye tracking as standard. Pre-orders went live in November 2016, with the first headsets shipping over the course of this month. Today FOVE Inc. has issued a status update regarding issues surrounding the software development kit (SDK), Unity and Unreal plugins, and the SteamVR driver.
With Steam being the dominant global marketplace that it is, support for the platform is fairly important. FOVE Inc. has now said a beta version will be available on Steam this Thursday, 2nd February, users just need to fill in this form to apply.
For developers the company has launched a new version of its SDK, with 0.10.0 going live today. Issues surrounding video game development engines Unity and Epic Games’ Unreal Engine have now reportedly been resolved, with stable versions of the plugins available through the manufacturers website.
Checkout the full changlog rundown below, and for any further FOVE updates, keep reading VRFocus.
Current status of FOVE 0 platforms and content:
1 FOVE SDK
The version 0.9.3 of FOVE SDK was uploaded to our website on January 20th
We will publish a new version (0.10.0) of the SDK today, January 30th
2 FOVE Setup
There was a problem with the setup application during the first week of launch
The problem was fixed and version 0.9.3.1 was uploaded to our website on January 25th
We will publish a new version (0.10.0) of the Setup today, January 30th
3 Unity plugin
There was a problem with Unity plugin during the first week of launch
It was fixed and the latest version of the plugin was uploaded to our website on January 25th
4 Unreal plugin
The latest version has been uploaded to Github and is working properly
See download instructions on our website
5 Unity example
In relation to the problem with the Unity plugin reported above, there was a problem with the example scene too
A fix was made and uploaded to our website on January 25th
6 SteamVR driver
The beta version will be available on Steam this Thursday, February 2nd
If you wish to sign up as a beta tester, fill in this form and we will send you the Steam beta access key on the day of launch
7 OSVR driver
We are working on getting the beta version online as soon as possible
8 Other sample content
We are preparing our original demo launcher at the moment and are planning to upload it to our website soon
Inside the demo launcher you will find various applications that utilise eye tracking in creative ways – for gaming, analytics, social interaction and more
